Factual and Procedural Background
On 19 February 2025 the Appellant pleaded guilty at the Magistrates' Court at The City and was committed for sentence under section 14 of the Sentencing Act 2020 in respect of two offences of attempted sexual communication/causing a child to view sexual images contrary to section 1(1) of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 ("offences 1 and 2"). On 19 March 2025, in the Crown Court at The City, the Appellant pleaded guilty to three offences of making indecent photographs of a child contrary to section 1(1)(a) of the Protection of Children Act 1978 (images in categories A, B and C). On 3 June 2025 Judge Gallagher sentenced the Appellant: no separate penalty for offence 1; two years' imprisonment for offence 2; and eight months' imprisonment consecutive for the category A image offence (no separate penalties for the B and C images), giving an effective total of two years and eight months. The Appellant obtained leave to appeal against sentence.
The offending was exposed by a paedophile hunting group (referred to in this summary as Company A) that had posed as a 14-year-old online (the decoy victim). The Appellant engaged in messaging, was repeatedly reminded of the decoy's age, and sent sexual images and videos purportedly of himself. The Appellant was identified, arrested at his home address and a phone search recovered indecent images: seven Category A (including an image of a 9-year-old being raped), six Category B and 12 Category C (one moving image), showing girls aged 11–14 except for the one Category A image mentioned. The images dated from January 2024 and had been deleted except for one. The Appellant had a substantial record of non-sexual convictions (the record contained no prior sexual-offence convictions). A pre-sentence report noted prompt guilty pleas, minimising tendencies, alcohol dependence and some health problems.
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether the Recorder was entitled to increase the notional sentence for offence 2 from the starting point of two years to three years by treating the Appellant's comment to the decoy about "not telling anyone" as sufficient aggravation under the Sentencing Council guideline.
- Whether the Recorder failed to give proper mitigation credit for the absence of relevant prior sexual convictions when sentencing for offence 2 and for the image offences.
- Whether the Recorder erred in failing to make a totality adjustment in respect of the image offences when imposing consecutive sentences.
Arguments of the Parties
Appellant's Arguments
- Attorney Wilson argued that the remark asking the decoy not to tell anyone was an insufficient aggravating feature to justify raising the notional sentence for offence 2 from a two-year starting point to three years.
- It was submitted that the Recorder should have allowed some mitigation for the lack of any relevant sexual-offence convictions under the Sentencing Council guidance.
- For the image offences, it was accepted that a consecutive sentence was justified but some allowance should have been made for totality when calculating the overall term.
Table of Precedents Cited
No precedents were cited in the provided opinion.
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
Judge Bennathan reviewed the Recorder's approach and endorsed, in principle, the grouping of offences into two effective sentences (one for the attempt offences and one for the image offences) and the selection of the leading offence in each group. For offence 2 (attempting to cause a child to view sexual images) the Recorder had applied the Sentencing Council guideline, categorised the offence as harm category 2 and culpability A (giving a two-year starting point), then treated the decoy's secrecy remark as an aggravating feature of the type described in the guideline and raised the notional sentence to three years before applying a one-third reduction for an early guilty plea.
The court analysed that: (a) the secrecy remark amounted to only limited aggravation — the guideline commentary links greater aggravation to more sophisticated, extensive or persistent conduct after the event; (b) the Recorder appeared not to have afforded any credit for the absence of relevant sexual-offence convictions, which ought to have had at least modest mitigating effect; (c) the fact that the victim was a decoy (not a real child) is recognised in Sentencing Council guidance as capable of supplying some mitigation; and (d) the Recorder made no totality adjustment in respect of the image offences.
Applying those considerations, the court concluded that the notional uplift to three years for offence 2 was manifestly excessive when balanced against the mitigating factors identified. The court therefore reinstated the proper starting point of two years for offence 2, allowed the one-third guilty-plea reduction to reach 16 months' imprisonment, and adjusted the image-offence sentence from the Recorder's calculation as follows: starting point 12 months reduced modestly for no relevant antecedents to ten months, reduced by 25% for the guilty plea to 7.5 months, and further reduced for totality to six months, to run consecutively. The court declined to suspend the custodial term, concluding immediate custody was necessary given the Appellant's record and the offences' seriousness.
Holding and Implications
APPEAL ALLOWED IN PART
Holding: The court quashed the sentences imposed by Judge Gallagher and substituted sentences totalling 22 months' immediate imprisonment (16 months for offence 2 and a consecutive 6 months for the image offences). The court refused to suspend the sentence.
Implications: The direct effect is the reduction of the Appellant's effective sentence from two years and eight months to 22 months' immediate custody. The opinion does not purport to establish a new legal precedent beyond its application of Sentencing Council guidance to the facts; no broader new legal principle is announced.